Kia Sportage tires

The pressure on a Sportage is easy. The tire is not always so obvious, because two of the trims wear the same size and different tread, and on an all-wheel-drive car that difference is the one that matters.

The sizes Kia fitted

The NQ5 generation runs from 2023 and changed fitments completely from the car before it. Sizes and pressures here are confirmed on the 2023 car. The 2018 to 2022 QL generation is not covered by this page.

• 235/65R17 on LX, Hybrid LX, X-Pro and X-Pro Prestige. This is the volume fitment, and the X-Pro trims run an all-terrain tread on it.
• 235/60R18 on EX, SX, Hybrid EX and Hybrid SX-Prestige.
• 235/55R19 on X-Line.

The X-Pro is the detail worth holding onto. It shares 235/65R17 with the LX, so a size lookup returns the same answer for both, and the tires are still not interchangeable. An all-terrain tread and a highway tread have different tread depths when new and wear at different rates, and on an all-wheel-drive car that is a driveline question rather than a comfort one. Confirm the tread pattern, not just the size. See finding your tire size.

Where the Sportage puts its placard

The driver's door sill, on the driver-side centre pillar. The Kia owner's manual describes the tire and loading information label as located on the driver's door sill, giving the original tire size and the recommended cold tire pressures.

That wording is the group-level answer in Kia's shared manual format rather than a statement about this exact model and year, so confirm it on your own car. Open the driver's door. If the edge of the door is bare, look at the upright post beside the seat. That post is the B-pillar, and a large part of the industry has moved this label onto it. Our tire pressure placard guide sets out which makes go where.

How to read it once you find it

1. Cold pressure, front.
2. Cold pressure, rear. Equal to the front on this vehicle.
3. The original tire size, which is the size the car was designed around.
4. The spare, printed separately and normally at a much higher figure.

Cold means the car has been parked at least three hours, or driven under about a mile. A tire warms as it rolls and its pressure rises with it, so a gauge reading after a drive is high and will tempt you into letting good air out.

The verified pressure

35 psi front and rear, on all three fitments. Both pressure sources we used report a uniform 35 front and rear with no dissenting figure anywhere.

One caveat travels with that. The second source's list of sizes does not match the Sportage's OE fitments, so it corroborates the figure and not the size mapping. The trim-to-size table above comes from the retailer fitment database instead. In practice this means the 35 is well supported and the size for your trim is worth confirming from the sidewall.

Replacing fewer than four

All-wheel drive is optional on the Sportage. No Kia tire-matching tolerance was found in our sources, and Tire Rack's per-manufacturer table does not cover Kia, so there is no numeric limit to quote and we will not invent one.

That leaves a judgement made at the car. On a front-drive Sportage, one or two tires is a normal job, and two new ones go on the rear axle. On an all-wheel-drive car with three worn tires, matching all four is the safe course. On an X-Pro it is stricter still, because a single new all-terrain against three worn ones is a circumference mismatch as well as a tread one. See how many tires and mixing tire brands.

What changes on a mobile Sportage fitting

• Direct TPMS, with a sensor in each road wheel, so the job ends with a reset or a relearn rather than a pressure check alone.
• X-Pro and LX share a size. We confirm the tread pattern before quoting a single tire on an all-wheel-drive car.
• Three wheel sizes from 17 to 19 inch, none awkward to lift or reach.
• Hybrid trims sit on the same fitments as the petrol cars but carry more weight, so we keep the load index rather than matching size alone.
• The label may be on the pillar rather than the door edge, so the door is opened fully before anything is inflated.

What we do

We supply the tires and fit them where the car is parked. Pressure is set to the figure on your own label rather than to a database, the TPMS is reset or relearned where the vehicle supports it, and the old tires leave with us. Off-season sets can go into tire storage. Pricing is on our mobile tire replacement page.

Questions people ask

• What psi does a Sportage take? 35 front and rear on all three OE fitments, reported uniformly by both sources we checked.
• Where is the label? The driver's door sill, on the centre pillar. If the door edge is bare, look at the upright post beside the seat.
• My X-Pro is the same size as an LX. Can I fit an LX tire? The size fits. The tread does not match, and on an all-wheel-drive car that is the part that matters.
• Can I replace two tires instead of four? On a front-drive car, yes, and they go on the rear. On an all-wheel-drive car we look at the other two first.
• Is there a Kia rule about matching all four? None that we could source. Anyone quoting a Kia tolerance figure is quoting something we could not find.
• Do you reset the tire light? Yes, where the vehicle supports it. Each wheel has its own sensor.